Corruption and embezzlement suspect Yang Zhongwan was extradited to Shanghai yesterday after running from the law for seven years while living overseas.

Yang, in his early seventies, is believed to have embezzled public money from 1993 to 1995 when he was in charge of the Shanghai Nuclear Power Administration Office and general manager of the state-owned Huashen Electric and Nuclear Power Company.

He allegedly took advantage of his management positions to embezzle deposits and interest from loans, which totaled about 180,000 yuan (US$21,687).

Officials from the local prosecutors' office said yesterday the amount was still under investigation.

Yang disappeared in 1997 on a temporary secondment in a foreign country after local police captured a man named Zhu, said to be an accomplice.

Zhu was convicted and jailed.

Yang had evaded authorities for the past seven years.

Authorities wouldn't name the foreign country where Yang was caught or reveal whether he had hidden indifferent countries over the years.

Shanghai No.1 Intermediate Prosecutors' Office officially filed a crime case and started the investigation in August 2000, naming Yang as a prime suspect for corruption as a government official and embezzlement of state-owned corporate funds.

They issued a global wanted notice for Yang online that December.

They issued a warrant for his arrest last July.

Important tips from overseas came in last year and police finally tracked him down with help from law-enforcement agents in the foreign country, local authorities said.

Growing numbers of government and corporate officials are being tried for corruption, accepting bribes and negligence of duties, the Shanghai People's Prosecutors' Office said this month.

In the first quarter of this year, local courts heard 156 corruption or negligence cases. Thirty-two of the cases involved government division chiefs or bureau directors.

(Shanghai Daily May 20, 2004)